Author: Ronald Lipsman

Ron Lipsman, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of Maryland, writes about politics, culture, education, science and sports at http://ronlipsman.com. Though formally retired, he continues to teach part-time.

Much has been written about the declining number of tenure/tenure-track faculty (TTF) when considered as a percentage of the total instructional faculty on the nation’s campuses. That percentage was likely more than 75% several decades ago; it is now in the neighborhood of 30%. (It depends upon whether one computes the percentage based on bodies […]

The grades I just issued in my post-calculus, differential equations course – a sophomore math offering taken mostly by engineering students—followed the usual bell-shaped curve, roughly 10% A’s, 20% B’s, 40% C’s, 20% D’s and 10% F’s. The complaints came more from the D students than from the Fs.

By Ron Lipsman The essays that appear on this site are often critical of academic faculty. The criticism is frequently legitimate, as faculty are oftentimes complicit in the formulation and execution of academic policies that should garner disapproval. Alas, faculty are too often found at the forefront of efforts to: install speech constraints on the […]

Easy question. Administrators do. Odd as it may sound today, faculties have long assumed the right and duty to set the campus agenda–to establish admission standards, control research and curriculum, run visiting speaker programs, and set the academic and professional criteria on which promotions, prizes and appointments are based. Historically, the faculty actually did control […]

Professors with tenure have lifetime appointments that can only be revoked after some egregious transgression, summarized by such formal labels as moral turpitude, gross negligence or dereliction of duty. In effect, the only tenured professors who get the sack are those who have robbed a bank, raped a co-ed or pistol-whipped a colleague. Why would […]

It is no secret that what passes for an education at most of the nation’s colleges and universities is suspiciously akin to indoctrination. An asterisk: With the exception of a few areas–specifically, climate and the environment, certain fields within biology and medicine, history of science and the interaction between science and public policy–the rot that […]

Sign Up for Our Weekly Newsletter

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

Please! Support Our Work and DONATE

Minding the Campus, the website written mostly by courageous professors who choose to educate rather than proselytize students to their world view, needs your help. Even a small donation makes a big difference. Click here to donate now.

Notable

Western Civilization = White Supremacy

New York City school administrators have been taught that pillars of Western Civilization such as objectivity, individualism, and even belief in the written word all are examples of … white supremacy, theNew York Post reports.

A slide presentation obtained by the Post from the workshop “Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change” includes claims that a belief in an “ultimate truth” (objectivity) leads to a dismissal of “alternate viewpoints or emotions” as “bad” (this is straight out of the critical race theory playbook), and that emphasis on the written word overlooks the “ability to relate to others” and leads to “teaching that there is only ‘one right way’ to do something.”

Other “hallmarks” of white supremacy include a “sense of urgency,” “quantity over quality,” and “perfectionism.” Read more at The College Fix

The Civility Problem

Maybe a few courses on how to create a civil society would help America's so-called "social warriors" learn how to deal with their fellow men and women. Let's start with Amherst College in Massachusetts, where former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was scheduled to address the ongoing issue of free speech on campus. Campus Reform reports that Sessions got a dose of today's SJW tactics when a stinkbomb was set off before he went on stage. Then, a walkout was staged by a gay pride group punctuating the assault on the former A.G. Stinkbombs? What is this, 7th grade?

Studying 'Angry White Males'

The University of Kansas has approved a course called “angry white male studies,” open to all students willing to take a women’s studies course first. The course on white males will explore recent changes in demographics since the 1950s. Republican Congressman Ron Estes took a dim view, arguing that ”KU is offering a class that divides the student population and could pose a TitleIX violation by creating a hostile campus movement based on gender.” The course will be taught by Christopher Forth, who focuses on gender, fat-shaming, and masculinity.

Erasing White Men from Politics

Believing that courses on American political thought are too fixated on white males, Professor Chad Shomura of the University of Colorado at Denver has solved the problem by banning discussion of white men in his course on the nation’s political thought. This means nothing from Washington, Jefferson, Tocqueville, Rousseau or any of the pre-Obama presidents. Discussion of the Hillary Clinton race for the presidency in 2016 is allowed, but how she managed to lose while apparently “running unopposed” is unclear.

No Free Speech: Heckler Cancels Another Student Meeting

Last week, a group of at least 4 Portland State University police officers stood by and declined to intervene as a heckler with a cowbell single-handedly canceled a College Republicans meeting. This is the second time in 2019 that PSU allowed hecklers or would-be hecklers to shut down campus expression — and the second time the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has demanded the university adhere to its First Amendment obligations. FIRE first wrote to the university Feb. 18 after PSU’s law enforcement unilaterally canceled a meeting of a socialist student group after the founder of the group Patriot Prayer said he would show up.

Be Careful What You Wish For on Social Programs

Nathan Glazer, the last of a group of famous neocon social scientists, died at the age of 95 on January 19 at his home in Cambridge, Mass. (He resisted the label “neocon.”) Glazer consistently warned that vast government plans to improve the lives of the poor often come to grief or create new problems of their own. “The evaluations of the specifics of the first ten years after the launching of (the War on Poverty) confirm that nothing worked and in particular, nothing in education worked.” He concluded that the family was the key institution to positive social change and that rights are inherent in individuals, not groups. The article here by Howard Husock of the Manhattan Institute ran in 2011 when President Obama planned an extension of the War on Poverty.

Reader Letter of the Week

There are two real dangers to this anti-white mindset that its proponents don’t seem to comprehend.

First, a minority of foolish and morally bankrupt white people can, will, and do buy all the social justice arguments and place themselves on the other side. That’s how you get white nationalist groups who say, “Yes, it is a power struggle between whites and everyone else, and we intend to come out on top.”

Second, and far more serious, the vast majority of white people who still hold to the tenets of individualism and equality will see the social justice warriors as a real and direct threat to their safety, culture, and future and react accordingly. As when we fought the Nazis and the Communists, there’s no need to agree with an enemy or even hold him in any regard as serious to recognize him and defeat him.

Either way, the result is division, civil unrest, and even war. Unfortunately, in this case, the SJWs have created a landscape in which there is no middle ground. It is one side or the other. The Feminists will fall first because there is no way to have a serious conflict between the sexes, and women are immensely practical creatures. But the other groups will find themselves in a very nasty position of facing a frightened and angry majority that has no intention of offering itself up for sacrifice. And when they mobilize, the “battle” won’t be metaphorical.

David S. Zondy

Write for MTC

Interested in writing for us?

Calling all professors, college newspaper reporters and editors who believe in diversity of thought as well as culture and ethnicity. Minding the Campus aims to expose today’s single lane thought highway at today’s universities and find solutions to the growing monoculture of ideas that silences the contrarians. MTC also has a commitment to due process and reports on how accusations of sexual assault on campus can convict a student who was denied legal representation. If you want to know more, please click here to read more.